Michigan

How the Pistons' Michael Curry saved the NBA

Chris McCosky has a column up detailing the contribution Pistons head coach Michael Curry gave to the NBA during the lockout and shortened NBA season.

October 28, Detroit News: Can Michael Curry save the Pistons? Forgive him for chuckling a bit at that. Save the Pistons? In 1999, Curry helped save the NBA players association, the 1999 season and, in a way, the NBA. Don't believe it? Ask Billy Hunter, executive director of the players association. He was asked if the union or the league would have been irreparably damaged had Curry not stepped into the fray in the final days of the league-imposed lockout. "We don't know for sure, obviously," said Hunter, "but it very well could have been."

Curry, at that time, was an NBA journeyman on his fourth team and in the middle of his first guaranteed contract. He wasn't exactly a household name, nor was he an officer of the union. He simply was one of 20 players on the union's negotiating committee.

Yet, it was Curry who went into a large meeting room in a Manhattan hotel Jan. 5, 1999, armed with the support of a majority of mid- to low-income level players he had brought together, and convinced the small minority of some 40 high-salaried players who ran the union to empower Hunter to negotiate alone with commissioner David Stern.

Had that battle not been won and Hunter not allowed to negotiate with Stern in an all-night session ending just hours before the deadline to cancel the season, by all accounts no deal would have been struck, the season would have been lost and an industry that was enjoying immense popularity would have been in peril.

There is no doubt that Curry played a key role in getting both sides together and the resolving the contract issues, Joe Dumars and Piston fan have high hopes that Curry can keep the Piston team focused in the playoffs and get over the hump that has stymied the team the past few years.

The Charlotte Observer has a NBA Eastern Conference preview and like a lot of other non-Detroit media they do not believe Michael Curry is going to push the Pistons over that hump, and in fact believe they will slide a bit. They have the Pistons are a five-seed and the Celtics as the top contenders.

October 28, Charlotte Observer: 5. Detroit Pistons: Joe Dumars promised big changes after last season, but nothing really happened. This team is getting old, but it's better off reshaping the roster when Rasheed Wallace's contract expires after this season.